Classic Emmerdale

The generic listing for Emmerdale on ITV3 on Virgin also has a cast listing: "Christopher Chittell, Steve Halliwell, James Hooton", of course only the former was actually in Emmerdale in 1989.

Similar often happens with their listings of EastEnders and Coronation Street, even when the synopsis is correct, usually when it's week or more ahead of broadcast. For example, the Drama EastEnders synopsis often lists Jamie Borthwick, who wasn't even born when these episodes were made!

Depends what they're titled as. If the entry is just "Emmerdale" I expect it's pulling the same cast list down as it would for anything else called "Emmerdale."

That made me laugh to no end.



I had to go looking and as said Granada filled the 17.10 slot with "stuff" Movies, games and videos, New adventures of Black beauty, Hunt the pie: http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Hunt_the_Pie , Dinosaurs, Billy? anyone know what that is? The munsters today,
but Blockbuster was moved back to 17.10 slot by September 1993, so everything was moving around all the time.

In 1994, Granada and border tried, Shortland street at 17.10, it never lasted long and thus cooking shows, Take the high road (Friday) , Busman's holiday, home Sylte, Travel Trails, The 051 show? Runway (R) but finally A country practice got most of the slots to burn off the series.

YTV/TT again were looking for stuff like repeats of, talkabout (R), Crosswits(R) and a vets life(R) and new, in between some new regional shows, Strange to think Central had Swot or Wot?, Talkabout and Gardening time at 17.10 before Shortland street come along.

by 1997 Border moved Supermarket sweep to 17.10 to have A country practice go out at 09.25 instead.



Its possible it could have also been Grampian, its been noted around this place Grampian and border used to share promo and weekend line ups, along with owning a certain Radio station.

Obviously a different era but arguable that the regions doing their own thing allowed each of them to learn where shows might work best and give them their best chance - it's no coincidence most seemed to settle with Home and Away at 6pm, and suspect that gave them a better lead in to the local news than the Early Evening News too.

Back on topic and is Emmerdale getting an early morning airing as well?

I always thought it was - blustery day.....homer and way!

I'd agree with the embarrassment thing - it was an import but one that performed exceptionally well. I guess some regions liked the idea of that than others. Central, for example, probably weren't fussed so were happy to put it on as late as possible to maximise its audience and thus the spot rate. I'm surprised they didn't follow Border's lead at 6:30; stick a bloody good soap in near primetime and then beat (E)MT to the headlines.

That simple, Central along with STV started the regional news before 18.30, it would also seem to start around 18.27 ish to get in more time.

No, that will be to start it before the BBCs

Granada Tonight as it was then called followed the same example and tried to start around 6:25. Both Central and Granada were listed as starting at 6:25.

In regards to Families; April - December 1992 it aired at 6PM only in the Granada Region. The Thursday Omnibus returned January 1993 till the finale the following August.

I too watched every episode of Families.

Back on topic. I would like to see Emmerdale from 1972 era but 1989 will be good too.

Ah, happy memories. Billy was the short-lived sitcom Billy Connolly made for US TV that spun off from his role in BBC1 daytime staple Head of the Class.



Indeed, and it was more or less down to the individual regions as to whether they thought the regional news would be better at six or 6.30. I remember reading in Broadcast circa 1995 a bit where they discussed which regional news shows got the best audience share and the region where ITV was the most popular was Central, where of course they went head to head with the Beeb. I seem to remember the least popular was Tyne Tees but that was in the days when Mike Neville was on the Beeb who had tremendous personal popularity. I also remember reading Granada were always ahead of the Beeb until they moved to six in 1997, at which point the Beeb overtook them.

As mentioned, Central seemed to be especially keen on soaps, they kept Shortland Street in a really prominent slot for ages and would show things like Echo Point which most other regions didn't bother with.



And on Yorkshire, Calendar started at 5.55 - again presumably to get one jump ahead on the Six O'Clock News.

As mentioned, the episodes of Emmerdale we'll get on ITV3 are from the last few weeks when it was on at 6.30. This was slightly odd scheduling, I think, and it seemed a bit of demotion for Emmerdale which was doing well enough at seven keeping BBC1 in check. If you look at Television's Greatest Hits, Top of the Pops rarely gets into the Top 20 ratings in 1986 and 1987 - indeed in those years the only episodes that do are episodes moved to 7.30 on other nights, away from the Thursday 7pm slot. But then in 1988 it appears more frequently and the highest rated episode is a Thursday 7pm one, so clearly it was performing better against the brantub of shows ITV were now showing in that slot.

Presumably it was decided Emmerdale was too downmarket to get the 7pm slot, or they wanted to utilise it in an earlier slot to try and get one jump ahead of the Beeb in hooking in an audience for the rest of the evening. Then of course in 1990 it moved back to seven.

I never know about that Billy Connolly sitcom I wonder if others took it. Echo point, the only other ITV company to broadcast it was Grampian and that was to replace Paradise Beach,

I thought Emmerdale was moved to 18.30 to fill the gap left by Crossroads? with the 7pm junction filled up with Gameshows?

Well, that may indeed be the case, although I think it moved to 6.30 at the start of 1988, at which point Crossroads was still running.